November 15, 2018

When The Elephants Scuffle...

Facebook seems to materialize in this column an awful lot. But when a service has “connected” more than 2.2 billion people, I suppose that makes sense. The New York Times published a deep dive into the company, based on interviews with “more than 50 people,” many of whom are anonymous. We learn, for example, that the company hired a Republican opposition-research group to discredit protesters by linking them to George Soros, and that it lobbied a Jewish civil rights group to label criticism of Facebook as anti-Semitic. Just normal, cool, I-started-a-company-in-my-Harvard-dorm-room stuff.

One of the mice that got trampled as the elephants battled is the Republican oppo-research firm Definers Public Affairs, which lost Facebook as a client amidst the hue and cry. Facebok's position: senior execs knew nothing and anyway, the media knew full well that DPA had Facebook as a client:

Late Wednesday, Facebook decided to terminate its relationship with Definers after the publication of the Times article prompted an outcry, said a person familiar with the matter, who was not authorized to speak publicly. Top Facebook executives including Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg were not aware of the specific work being done by Definers, the person said.

In a statement, Facebook said it had not hidden its ties to Definers and disputed that it had asked the firm to spread false information.

“It is wrong to suggest that we have ever asked Definers to pay for or write articles on Facebook’s behalf, or communicate anything untrue,” a Facebook spokeswoman said in the statement.

“The relationship with Facebook was well known by the media — not least because they have on several occasions sent out invitations to hundreds of journalists about important press calls on our behalf,” the spokeswoman added.

Well. We wouldn't expect Facebook to stand up to a left-wing mob. With a different alignment of politics and players the Times follow-up headline would be "Republicans Kvetch About Business As Usual".

Just for example, the Times also included this detail in their original expose (with a picture of the offending poster):

By then, some of the harshest criticism of Facebook was coming from the political left, where activists and policy experts had begun calling for the company to be broken up.

In July, organizers with a coalition called Freedom from Facebook crashed a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, where a company executive was testifying about its policies. As the executive spoke, the organizers held aloft signs depicting Ms. Sandberg and Mr. Zuckerberg, who are both Jewish, as two heads of an octopus stretching around the globe.

Eddie Vale, a Democratic public relations strategist who led the protest, later said the image was meant to evoke old cartoons of Standard Oil, the Gilded Age monopoly. But a Facebook official quickly called the Anti-Defamation League, a leading Jewish civil rights organization, to flag the sign. Facebook and other tech companies had partnered with the civil rights group since late 2017 on an initiative to combat anti-Semitism and hate speech online.

“Depicting Jews as an octopus encircling the globe is a classic anti-Semitic trope,” the organization wrote. “Protest Facebook — or anyone — all you want, but pick a different image.” The criticism was soon echoed in conservative outlets including The Washington Free Beacon, which has sought to tie Freedom from Facebook to what the publication calls “extreme anti-Israel groups.”

Hey, maybe the posters were meant to be anti-Semitic. Or maybe not! But it was lefties, so no biggie.

Rush was talking about how there will be no wall now (for the next two years) because the House went Dem. Why can't he say that the military is there to protect the country and task the Army Corps of Engineers to build it? Sure, the Dems would howl, and that's just another reason that Trump should want to do it.

Great, an unelected committee for public safety. What is wrong with free speech?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday said the company will establish an independent body to oversee user appeals of content removal, one day after a bombshell report that detailed how the company avoided and deflected blame in the public conversation around its handling of Russian interference and other misuses of its social network.

I don't know if anyone's talked about this but I think Cocaine Mitch, aka Gamera, and Grassley may have pulled off a masterful move. In the last session of the Senate, Ol' Yeller was livid that Chuck had introduced a Mueller protection bill; saying it was obviously unconstitutional and very unlike Grassley to do something like that. Then it just disappeared in committee without being voted and I thought "hmmmmm".

Speed forward to yesterday when grandstanding Flake decides to make a pest of himself on the way out the door and reintroduce it only to have the War Turtle use Senate rules where he can block it all by himself. I'm liking this unprecedented GOP smart strategy.

Wanted to relay to you that you have been a great help in keeping our DIL focused on our GD's education. She started Montessouri at 22 mo. and now has entered 1st grade in a system that Montessori is running within the local public school system in CO. They were initially excited about this, but it's turning sour pretty rapidly. The teacher is mostly blowing smoke on the activities and GD was taken out for a week due to some scheduling conflicts and DIL managed to get a week's lesson plan for the effort. GD ran through the week's work in 1.5 hrs.

So some combination of home schooling is on the horizon. However, DIL started to check out the acedemies that she could use for math, etc. and discovered that Ascent Classical Academy, which is apparently part of Hillsdale, is for the first time allowing a mid-year transfer, if she can get accepted. The fact that her current school is now part of the Douglas County District, there is a high probability she can get in. Fingers crossed.

Neo:WSJ: Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office is exploring whether longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone tried to intimidate and discredit a witness who is contradicting Mr. Stone's version of events about his contacts with WikiLeaks,

"Intimidating" and "discrediting"--like by saying: "Stop lying about me you bastard I have your texts."?

Boat, I'll bet Credico is exactly the witness Mueller means, and that Stone is trying to get Mueller to back off by going public with it. Unless Mueller really and truly believes that something somewhere somehow ties into Trump, he's being an awful PITA by messing around with fringe wackos.

I suppose that this Credico guy was as intimidated and discredited as the lefty protesters that Vox is all hot and bothered about:We learn, for example, that the company hired a Republican opposition-research group to discredit protesters by linking them to George Soros,

Were they actually connected to Soros? I suppose that is prima facie discrediting, but I thought Soros was a great guy and if you say anything bad about him it's anti-semitism. Leftism is very confusing.

He laid back down...he's about 15 months now but a few months ago the doc said he's one of the most active 1 year olds she's seen and he wears me out rough housing.

Jib, MAM's profile says Massachusetts so I just assumed? I also assumed he was a boy and hope that's right. My daughter just told me Bennett's getting a haircut this weekend because a stranger called him a she. (even though he was wearing blue with work boots on she stressed, lol) It's the mullet getting a bit long in the back but he's awesome!

Rocco and JIB - we do live in Massachusetts. I'm originally from Vermont. If my grandchildren weren't here, we'd move out of this crazy state. Today, I had a student tell me that the Russians manipulated the voting machines in PA and Michigan, changed thousands of ballots and stole the 2016 election for Trump. His Political Science professor is writing a book on the subject. Pitiful.

Mueller seems to be investigating everything except Russians. I want to make the left, and Dems howl. I want Matt Whitaker to take one high, over the middle, and restrict Mueller to his original remit. That's what tight ends do:)

I'm halfway tripping off of y'all responding to this Typepad account stuff. I was reading earlier today and trying to figure out what the big deal was, why the thanks to TM, what the hell is going on, etc.

Funny story. I had an associate who had a kidney stone, and we was getting treatment to shrink it, and eventual pass it. So, he walked around the office in a suit with a mini strainer tucked into his suit's lapel pocket:)

My daughter just told me Bennett's getting a haircut this weekend because a stranger called him a she.

Posted by: Rocco | November 15, 2018 at 03:52 PM

So there are some normal people left?

My son gave his baby sister a haircut and there was no saving it so we got her ears pierced. Then one of her baby incisors was flawed so she got a silver tooth. I almost had to spring for a quinceañera.

Judge Timothy J. Kelly heard nearly two hours of oral arguments about CNN's request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction on Wednesday. Then he said court would reconvene Thursday at 3 p.m.
But on Thursday afternoon, he rescheduled the next hearing for Friday at 10 a.m.

I had an ex that put me thru hell but the one time I almost felt sorry for her was at a 'Sliding Scale' Community Health Center dentist. This guy was more like Community Service, no lie. He went to numb her and he was shaking like Michael J Fox.

I don't really know what happened to either one of them but I will always have that memory.

[Sen.] Graham met with Whitaker Thursday afternoon in his Russell Building office and says the man President Trump tapped to replace ousted Attorney General Jeff Sessions says he doesn’t see anything wrong with Mueller’s probe.

“As to the Mueller investigation, I’m confident that it is not in jeopardy,” Graham said after meeting with Whitaker.

Graham said that Whitaker assured him that he doesn’t think that Mueller’s probe has breached any Justice Department guidelines.

“There’s no reason to fire him. I asked him, ‘Do you have any reason to [fire] Mr. Mueller? He said he has zero reason to believe anything is being done wrong with the Mueller investigation,” Graham said, recounting the conversation.